National Bingo Night

If you thought that you'd seen everything that the world of bingo has to offer, think again. On May 18, 2007 the ABC television network in the USA will broadcast the first ever real-time interactive bingo game in a show called (no prizes for guessing this) National Bingo Night.

According to information from ABC, National Bingo Night will include “three games of fast-paced, high stakes Bingo”. A studio contestant will go up against the rest of the studio audience to try and win some genuinely impressive prizes that include cash and trips to a variety of attractive destinations.

But the excitement of National Bingo Night won’t be restricted to the television studio. Viewers in the US will be able to download a bingo card from the ABC web site and play the game for free from the comfort of their own homes. And if they win they can simply log on and claim their prize.

The most popular form of bingo in the United States is the 75 ball game, so it’s no surprise that National Bingo Night adopts a similar 75 ball approach. The game will take place in a large arena referred to as the “Bingo Plex”. Inside this arena numbers will be selected one at a time from a two and a half storey sphere. If the sole studio contestant is the first person to get bingo then they win the prize up for grabs. However, if they are beaten to bingo by someone in the studio audience, they have to go home empty handed.

The show airing on May 18 is to serve as the premier of a series of six shows, with the remaining five one hour episodes due to start recording in April. Given the fact that the UK tends to get all of the best US shows either in their original format or in a franchised UK-specific version, we’re guessing that it won’t be long before us Brits get a taste of National Bingo Night too. Whether we’re right or wrong on that issue remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure – on May 18 our bingo-playing American cousins won’t have their “eyes down”, they’ll have their eyes on the box!